Will humans terraform Mars in the near future?

Mars is in the news again and the red planet is a fury of a news story.

The persistent rumours of past civilizations on earth's favourite neighbour and even a much more hospitable environment than commonly believed all hidden from humans?

If going to mars is a big deal now and talk increases of landing men on Mars and then of course a Mars colony then should we consider stories of Terraforming Mars as being 'way out science?' I don't think so and I expect that is the plan.

A few good links providing information on this subject.

science.howstuffworks.com...
www.users.globalnet.co.uk...
www.fortunecity.com...

I find it interesting that the third link, the site states upfront that the goal is to form a colony that will ensure that overpopulation does not occur.

I watched a program about this the other day, and judging from what it said i think that its certainly possible, it seemed to tackle all the problems that would stand in the way of such a thing.

i reckon that by the end of the century we'll have a colony on mars consisting of mostly astro-biologists and stuff.

Hahah.

First off there needs to be water to be able to terraform mars.
That's the first thing you need.

Once oyu can find enough water to support terraforming...then terraforming would be possible. But without enough water....there wont be any terraforming.

But water is on mars is it not?

I think that has nearly been proven except for the drinking of it...

but frozen water if that is all there is requires energy to melt it too.

unless liquid water is underground too.

I've had it with you vermin. I'm becoming more and more disturbed each time I enter these damn threads that discuss the possibility of inhabiting another planet. This has got to be the WORST idea, ever.

Ah, we've pissed all over this planet, so let's take it to another.



This text isn't directed towards the above members, but the human race as a whole.

There isn't that much water at the caps.

It's not meant to be really thick like our caps.
It's only meant to be something like 1 foot high i think, or something like that.

Bangin,

I do not advocate going to mars not without a very public discussion about what is going on here on earth first and what is expected to happen here in future,

but actions speak louder than words and they do want to flee... or so it seems.


DaRage,

I have no idea how much ice is really on mars nor how thick it is. If you have a thread on that please put it up, actually It must be in the links I posted, I didn't read all of that material yet.

Sorry my mistake...Here's the latest facts.

BTW...Is this enough water for terraforming a whole planet?

Martian Ice Caps And The Quantity of Ice

"The topographic map reveals that the ice cap is about 750 miles (1,200 kilometers) across, with a maximum thickness of 1.8 miles (3 kilometers). The cap is cut by canyons and troughs that plunge to as deep as 0.6 miles (1 kilometer) beneath the surface. "Similar features do not occur on any glacial or polar terrain on Earth," said Dr. Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. "They appear to be carved by wind and evaporation of ice."


The shape of the polar cap indicates that it is composed primarily of water ice, with a volume of 300,000 cubic miles (1.2 million cubic kilometers). The cap has an average thickness of 0.64 miles (1.03 kilometers) and covers an area 1.5 times the size of Texas. For comparison, the volume of the Martian north polar cap is less than half that of the Greenland ice cap, and about four percent of the Antarctic ice sheet

The estimated volume of the north ice cap is about 10 times less than the minimum volume of an ancient ocean that some scientists believe once existed on Mars. If a large body of water once existed on the red planet, the remainder of the water must presently be stored below the surface and in the much smaller south polar cap, or have been lost to space. But such a large amount of unaccounted-for water is not easily explained by current models of Martian evolution."

[Edited on 12-1-2004 by DaRAGE]

The water isnt meant to be in the caps its meant to be below ground like 6 meters.

if we do to mars what we are doing to our earth now(polluting the hell out of it), it mite thicken the atmosphere and eventually make the planet warmer-warm enough to melt the ice caps releasing more C02 (frozen C02 in the ice caps as well as water)

now the water underground is most probably frozen, and this mite just make it turn into liquid form. This idea was made when a country (i think was the US) made a massive underground base for all their tanks ages ago. they thought that there would be no water there but there was tonnnes of it in ice form.

a japanese guy also found a very logical reason to why those ridges are all over mars's surface: it is most probably caused by the freeze-thaw action of the water, eventually making it dig into the ground. later, the winds will cover it up but still leaving a visible line (the ridge)

there goes the not enough water theory out of the window.

but hey what do i know im only a kid

Damn Smartasses ;P

all you're doing is telling me the information oyu know...and making me smarter too

Keep up the good work

As each planet continues it's inevitable spiral into the sun from degrading orbits, Earth won't be habitable but Mars might.

Whether or not Mars will ever be habitable (even with our help) remains speculative. What is beyond doubt, is that Earth won't be habitable forever.

Not even our Sun will last forever. It's not like humanity has to worry anytime soon (short of the long overdue planet killer asteroid) but it's a no brainer realization that long distance space travel and colonization is eventually a required neccesity or humanity WILL expire at some point.

As far as humans and the Earth go, we're just renting an RV on a collision course with doom. Back up vehicles aren't a bad idea.

I think that we will begin to colonize Mars some time this century, as well as begin terraformation operations.

I think the problem with Mars isn't water, as from all evidence it has alot, it's Nitrogen, which Mars doesn't seem to have much of, and Nitrogen is another element required for Earth Life, its required in the atmosphere, and it's required in the ground

Some months ago I've been talking quite some time with a botanist I know a bit for years now. We talked precisely about terraforming Mars, and his ideas were quite interesting... I've read also the articles provided as links.

What the guy was saying, basically, is that here on earth we have some vegetals, like some fungi or some lichens (couldn't remember the name of those...!) that can live under the conditions described as being Mars' conditions, especially the north pole cap.

He thinks that bringing such life forms to there, in quantities sufficient enough to allow them to breed and develop efficiently, would initiate a creation of atmosphere composed with nitrogen and oxygen, much in the way it was here on here, just a few years ago! (ahem...)

With maybe some more additions, he thinks that this method (even though it could take several centuries, or even millenia) would re-create similar environment changes that happened on earth, and that eventually Mars will be "very easily" terraformed, that is without much intervention and trips to there from us.

Any other info very welcome.

Originally posted by Bangin
I've had it with you vermin. I'm becoming more and more disturbed each time I enter these damn threads that discuss the possibility of inhabiting another planet. This has got to be the WORST idea, ever.

Ah, we've pissed all over this planet, so let's take it to another.

This text isn't directed towards the above members, but the human race as a whole.

damn right we should expand to Mars, The Moon, and every planet, astroid, moon, etc that we can. the survival of any species, including ours, depends on protecting and expanding our DNA as far as possible. hopefully, our species and technology will evolve beyond it's current limitations

let the man have an opinion ok if he doesnt wanna go then thats his view just dont drag us down with u ok?